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The Blackadder star loved playing the villain in this Robin Hood spoof – but Kate Lonergan had to get checked for bites between shots as her yellow underwear kept attracting ticksI did a Jackanory Playhouse and got slightly drunk after the recording. I said: “It’s not real storytelling, is it? We’re reading off an Autocue.” The senior BBC figures said: “Well, what would you do?” My daughter was 10 at the time, tiny, feisty, but crap at football. I watched her charging around the playground yelling at the boys and thought: “If there really was a Robin Hood and he’d met my daughter, it wouldn’t have been him who was in charge of the gang.” Continue reading...

Spokesperson for billionaire says Russian-Israeli owner of football club was contacted by Ukrainian side

Motoring groups warn rises, made worse by the war in Ukraine, will add to the cost of living crisisUK petrol and diesel prices have passed the “grim milestone” of 150p a litre for the first time, with further rises expected as Russia’s invasion of Ukraine pushes up the cost of fuel worldwide.The average price of unleaded petrol climbed to 151.25p and diesel rose to 154.74p on Sunday, both record highs, according to RAC data from roughly 7,500 UK petrol forecourts. Continue reading...

Initiative aimed at boosting Covid-hit sector is open to Italians and foreigners who marry this year

Options include giving to charities on the ground, supporting local journalists and writing to your MP

The latest science shows that genes and environment are ​too deeply entwined to pit them against one anotherWhen you hear people conversing in an unfamiliar language, why is it that you can’t even tell where one word ends and the next begins? If you are a native English speaker, why is it so challenging to get your mouth around a French or Hebrew “r”, which originates lower in the throat, or the “r” in Spanish or Italian, which is trilled on the tip of the tongue? Your ability to hear and make sounds, and to understand their meaning as language, is wired into your brain. How you acquire that wiring illuminates an age-old debate about human nature.In the first few months of your life, your infant brain is bathed in all kinds of information from the world around you, through your senses. This sense data causes changes in your brain as your neurons fire in various patterns. Some collections of neurons fire together frequently, strengthening or tuning their connections and aiding learning. Others are used less and are pruned away, making room for more useful ones to form. This process of tuning and pruning is called plasticity, and it happens throughout your life, but enormously in the first few years. Continue reading...

HSBC, NatWest, Barclays and Lloyds lose out as investors switch to defence stocks

Ex-minister explains why he resigned last year after CCTV showed him embracing adviser Gina Coladangelo

Defence secretary says ministers will ‘reflect on’ EU’s more generous plan for refugees in coming days

Some analysts expect a ‘complete collapse’ in currency amid signs one state-backed bank could fail, while Ukraine president warns key moment has arrived

NSW government says it will sell holdings of Russian assets, as rouble crashes more than 40% after international sanctions

Witness heard gunfire and turned to see different patrol member with raised weapon and detainee shot dead, court hears

Fishermen in Mexico are using the ike jime method, which aims to reduce fish trauma, to improve the quality of catches and help sustainabilityEvery morning, hundreds of small white fishing boats dot the dark blue waters of Veracruz’s coastline on the Gulf of Mexico. Most of the crews, many of whose families have been fishing for generations, employ traditional methods – using nets to catch large numbers of fish, which then slowly asphyxiate once out of the water.But a few of the fishermen are doing something different, using a technique that emerged in Japan several centuries ago. It is a method for slaughtering fish that emulates a process called ike jime, which is based on a simple scientific principle: the less trauma the fish experiences, the longer the flesh remains fresh. Continue reading...

As government officials downplay the fighting in Afar, families are separated, children killed and young people ready to take up arms, while hopes of peace talks fadeWhen the bombs started to fall on Afar, people scattered. In the chaos and panic families were ripped apart. A young father lost two of his children, killed by ricocheting rocks. A grandmother had to leave behind her dying son-in-law, a bullet wound in his back; his wife still hasn’t heard the news. A 28-year-old woman doesn’t know if three of her five children are alive or dead.All of them are nomadic people from Ethiopia’s north-east Afar region, and survivors of the latest round of bloodshed in the country’s devastating civil war. In makeshift shelters that have sprung up around Afdera, a hardscrabble merchant town beside a volcanic salt lake, they talk about homes destroyed by shelling and villages looted bare. Afar’s authorities estimate that more than 300,000 people have fled the fighting since January. Continue reading...

Eight people have died, more are missing and hundreds have been rescued as flooding hits Brisbane, Lismore, Murwillumbah and Grafton

She was going nowhere in smalltown Kansas – until she unleashed her voice and became a raucous, liquor-swilling cabaret colossus. Now she’s the star of a hard-rocking, emotionally charged HBO drama‘It’s a little like Sliding Doors,” says the actor and cabaret artist Bridget Everett, speaking from Manhattan, New York. She’s talking about her new dramedy Somebody Somewhere, which is set in Manhattan, Kansas. “Basically, what life might be like if I had stayed in Kansas and never moved to New York and found my voice.”I feel I ought to point out that Somebody Somewhere is nothing like Sliding Doors. Everett plays Sam, a subdued, laconic woman, sometimes depressed, sometimes just not feeling it. She has a quiet life and a gigantic voice, which she slowly comes around to unleashing in the drab community centres and church halls where thwarted, flamboyant people find one another. The drama doesn’t so much centre on Sam as move stealthily from one understated struggle to another: Sam and her sister’s grief at losing their other sister; their mother’s alcoholism, which, like bankruptcy, moves first slowly and then very fast. Continue reading...

It might be funny and sexy, but the spy thriller is out of new ideas. And now even the fabulous costumes are in short supplyWhatever else is going right or wrong with a TV show, it helps if we know immediately which series we’re watching. A shimmering brutalist landscape, “Russia”written in giant pastel letters, retro-reverb beehive pop on the soundtrack and a woman in biking leathers breaking into a government building wielding a gun and silencer? This can only be Killing Eve (BBC iPlayer).This is season four. If you didn’t catch seasons one to three, what have you missed? Well, there’s a diffident but determined intelligence agent called Eve (Sandra Oh), and a fearsome yet brittle assassin called Villanelle (Jodie Comer), and they’re obsessed with each other because … actually we’ve never fully established why. Anyway, since Eve began tracking Villanelle, what has happened is … do you know, I’m not properly across that either? A criminal network called the Twelve keeps murdering beloved minor characters, and Eve plans to destroy it, but what the Twelve wants or why we might care has remained murky. Continue reading...

It is 10 years since she helped launch possibly the biggest global protest movement in history. But then came controversy as huge sums of money flowed in. She describes how her childhood inspired her activism – and the hurt she has suffered“You’re gonna make me cry,” Patrisse Cullors warns when I ask how she feels about being criticised by other Black people. Then the co-founder of Black Lives Matter (BLM) turns away from the webcam and starts to sob, hand to her mouth. “I’m crying because I was prepared for rightwing attacks. I wasn’t prepared for Black people to attack me. And I think that’s probably the hardest thing in this position, to lose your own people. The people that you love the most, the people that you do this work for. The human being feels betrayed, the leader feels like: ‘Yeah, welcome to Black leadership. This is the fucking hazing.’”It’s almost 10 years since Cullors, 38, helped to launch what has been described as the largest global protest movement in history. In that time she has gone from local community organiser to international activism A-lister. But with celebrity has come controversy, including complaints about a lack of transparency about the huge sums of money that have flowed BLM’s way. She has also been called a hypocrite for amassing a property portfolio inconsistent with her beliefs as a self-described “trained Marxist.” She has called these attacks: “Not just a character assassination campaign, but a campaign to actually get me assassinated.” Continue reading...

Who is to blame?

Brittany symbolises how difficult life has been for many French people in past two years – but there are signs of changeOn the edge of one of Brittany’s poorest housing estates, a six-year-old girl sits in class and works on her handwriting. Her teacher, Lucile, encourages her as 11 other children sit around tables, arranged into cosy nooks. “Every day I listen to each child read to me, I never managed that when I had 25 in a class,” said Lucile. “I get to know each child individually and it’s so calm.”It is in classrooms like this, in France’s most deprived neighbourhoods, that the centrist president, Emmanuel Macron, wants his record in office to be considered. When he came to power five years ago – a former banker who had served as economy minister under the left – he promised a “pragmatic” cherrypicking of ideas from both left and right that would liberalise the economy and end the persistent inequality that he said “imprisoned” people by their social origins. Continue reading...

Many people in Ukraine – like many outside observers – have found it hard to believe what has transpired, though spirits mostly remain high

Analysis: Zelenskiy has managed to achieve an unheard-of range of sanctions against Russia thanks to a tireless round of calls to allies

Despite the rise of headline-grabbing megafires, fewer fires are burning worldwide now than at any time since antiquity. But this isn’t good news – in banishing fire from sight, we have made its dangers stranger and less predictable. By Daniel Immerwahr Continue reading...

Netflix phenomenon and Apple’s deaf family drama make history at this year’s SAG awards ceremonyThe indie drama Coda has won big at this year’s Screen Actors Guild awards, picking up best ensemble in a movie and best supporting actor for Troy Kotsur, who is the first ever deaf actor to win an individual SAG award.The Apple drama about a deaf family was bought for $25m from last year’s Sundance film festival and has also been nominated for three Academy Awards, including best picture. Continue reading...

Eight people have died and three are still missing after heavy rain battered south-east Queensland

An open letter written by five historians denounced the war and called on Beijing to make its stance clearer

Star conductor and close friend of Putin dropped by his management ahead of deadline to speak out or be fired from Munich Philharmonic

Eighth rocket launch this year looked to be fired from area near Pyongyang international airportNorth Korea says a test conducted on Sunday was for the development of a reconnaissance satellite system, state media reported a day after a missile launch was detected from the country.The report from state news agency KCNA did not elaborate on what type of rocket had been used in the test, but authorities in South Korea and Seoul said it appeared to be a ballistic missile fired from an area near Pyongyang where its international airport is located. Continue reading...

Deterrence order given as Zelenskiy says Ukraine delegation will meet Russian officials at Belarus border

Rescuers still searching for four villagers believed to have been buried in mud after magnitude-6.2 quakeRescuers on Indonesia’s Sumatra island have retrieved more bodies after a strong earthquake two days ago, raising the death toll to 11 while another 400 were injured and thousands displaced.The body of the latest victim was recovered on Sunday from the rubble of homes toppled by the magnitude-6.2 earthquake that shook West Sumatra province on Friday morning, said National Disaster Mitigation Agency spokesperson Abdul Muhari. Continue reading...

Brisbane and Queensland’s south-east are set to endure more wild weather as the state grapples with a flood crisis. With the death toll from floods in Queensland and New South Wales rising to seven, severe weather warnings remain in place across 900km of Australia’s eastern seaboard

More than 200 events to take place as city invests £12m in programme hoped to aid post-pandemic recoveryBirmingham will benefit from “the great gift of the mega-event”, said the creative officer of the Commonwealth Games at the launch of a concurrent six-month-long cultural festival.Birmingham 2022 festival will include more than 200 events from March to September across the West Midlands and will involve more than 100,000 participants, making it one of the largest cultural programmes to ever surround the games. Continue reading...

It’s war on three fronts, across two continents for the Birmingham gang leader. Without his beloved Aunt Polly, will he be able to take it?Man walks into a bar. Herringbone cap, baby face, topcoat flapping in silhouette, weaponry secreted in case things turn sour. Which they always do. “Glass of water, please,” he says. The French stereotypes at table four give him the evils. Nobody orders soft drinks in these parts if they know what’s good for them. You could cut the tension with a – well, a razor blade concealed in the brim of your cap would do the job.It’s 1933, in a remote outpost of la Francophonie called Miquelon Island, which, as you know, is just off the coast of Newfoundland, and, therefore, beyond Canadian and American jurisdictions. For years, these Gallic stereotypes have been ferrying bootleg whiskey to Boston. But, now, prohibition is ending and their business model is collapsing. Continue reading...

The NS Champion oil tanker, majority-owned by the Russian state, is due to berth in Orkney on Tuesday

Volodymyr Zelenskiy says the Ukrainian and Russian delegations will meet without preconditions at Pripyat in Belarus. The Ukrainian president revealed that he was not confident that any progress would come from the meeting, but said he would do everything he could for the Ukrainian people

Trafalgar Square a sea of blue and yellow as demonstrators protest against brutal Russian invasionThousands of people gathered in cities across the UK for at times highly emotional rallies in support of Ukraine as the country defends itself against the brutal Russian invasion.In London, Trafalgar Square was a sea of blue and yellow as protesters voiced anguish and despair at Russian president Vladimir Putin’s bombardment of the eastern European country. Continue reading...

BP chief executive Bernard Looney quits Rosneft's board in ‘fundamental change’ in relations with MoscowBP is exiting its stake in Russian state-owned oil company Rosneft, days after coming under pressure from the UK government over its involvement with Russia.The London-headquartered oil giant announced on Sunday that it was quitting its 19.75% voting stake in Rosneft, after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine represented a “fundamental change” in relations with Moscow. Continue reading...

Telegram channel Find Your Own identifies PoWs – much to the horror of families who did not know they were part of invasion

Mothers and babies take shelter in hospital bunkers as Russian invasion claims lives of up to 10 childrenWhen the air raid sirens wail, Natalya Tyshchuk feels relatively lucky. She only has to get herself and her daughter Mia – born three months premature in December but no longer in a cumbersome incubator – down to the basement that serves as a bomb shelter for the Okhmatdyt children’s hospital in central Kyiv.Racing down the stairs beside them are nurses and families of premature babies in intensive care, who have to be rushed underground with their life support machines, oxygen canisters, and all the tubes and wires monitoring their fragile young lives. Continue reading...

Oleh Synyehubov says Ukrainian soldiers are now ‘cleaning up’ the eastern city

Northern Ireland secretary says he wants to see marked increase in schools officially offering integrated educationMinisters are to launch a campaign of “nudging and cajoling” to combat religious segregation in education in Northern Ireland, after figures revealed just 7% of schools officially offered integrated education.The Northern Ireland secretary, Brandon Lewis, said he wanted to see an acceleration in the number of schools opting for integrated status, believing it was an important part of the post-conflict journey of healing. Continue reading...

They survived flash flooding a decade ago by climbing on to their roof. On Friday, Jean and Lloyd Warr found themselves huddled together on top of their uteLloyd and Jean Warr, who survived flash flooding in 2011, have narrowly escaped with their lives once again after being rescued from Helidon in Queensland’s Lockyer Valley.Terrifying memories of the disaster a decade ago were reawakened this week across the valley where 23 people died in 2011. Continue reading...

There is a wealth of exciting growers, collectives and designers whose posts aim to broaden know-how and help the would-be green-fingered to cultivate their passionsAlessandro Vitale has become an Instagram and TikTok guru for urban gardeners growing their own food. The Italian tattoo studio manager films his experiments in vertical farming and organic gardening for fun- and information-packed posts. If you’re wondering about the username, it’s a reference to his chilli obsession – he has seeds for more than 600 varieties.

Defence secretary says former minister Lord Barker should explain why he works with Oleg DeripaskaThe defence secretary, Ben Wallace, has urged the Conservative peer and former minister Greg Barker to quit his lucrative role on the board of Russian aluminium firm EN+ whose owners include the oligarch Oleg Deripaska.Lord Barker, an energy minister in David Cameron’s government, earned $4m last year as executive chair of the firm, and devised a plan to help the company respond to US government sanctions levelled against the company and Deripaska in 2018. Continue reading...

But much-criticised project linking Greenwich Peninsula to Royal Victoria Dock is expected to surviveWhen Boris Johnson chose to build a cable car linking two of the lesser frequented spots of east London dockland, eyebrows were raised. After the then mayor’s pet project opened in time for the 2012 Olympics, the controversial sale of naming rights to the new Emirates Air Line at least stemmed the losses.Now, though, that lucrative deal is about to run out – and no sponsor can be found to step in, even at a fraction of the price. Continue reading...

President Zelenskiy issues call to arms to foreign nationals in battle against ‘Russian war criminals’

The Russian president has ordered his military to put the country’s nuclear deterrence forces on high alert in response to 'aggressive statements' by Nato countries

The war in Ukraine is the biggest international crisis to overshadow a presidential race in decades

Chancellor Olaf Scholz says urgency of Ukraine crisis has forced decision to increase defence spending

Hanya Yanagihara says executives wanted her harrowing bestseller about abuse and suicide given a ‘Sex and the City’ makeoverAs a global bestseller with rave reviews, set in New York, and with a cult following, A Little Life appears to have all the ingredients for a hit television show. But according to its author, Hanya Yanagihara, scripts for a screen adaptation of the hit novel have been rejected by numerous networks, streaming services and studios, with some network executives even requesting that she make the harrowing story “more like Sex and the City”.Yanagihara said she started working on scripts for a 12-part show with three other co-writers four years ago. They created four different scrips for the first four episodes of the series and detailed outlines for a further eight episodes. But after getting a commission from the streaming service Hulu, it was not picked up and, she told the Observer, “since then it’s been pretty much rejected by everyone”. Continue reading...